Category Archives: Ponds 2013

Observing Plants

As part of our IB/Science unit, we are learning about plant parts.  The National Geographic science curriculum suggested that I bring in real plants to let the kids observe.  It’s been frozen here for so long, nothing is growing yet, so I looked around for some other options:

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This was grass that the snow plow dug up when plowing our parking lot.   Free roots! 🙂photo

 

I found these tulips in this cool vase at Wal-Mart early last week and the tulips have grown from just over the top of the vase to this in 1 1/2 weeks. photo

This was my Amaryllis bulb from Christmas.  I was letting it die all the way back before storing it for next year.

The kids were given one plant to observe and take notes about it in their science notebook:

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We had to wear our safety goggles.  We also used our magnifying glasses. 🙂photo

 

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Kristen 😉

New Center Activities

I went into school to work today (we are on Spring Break) and to check on the tadpoles.  While I was there I copied A LOT of new pages we will be using to write, glue, and illustrate!  I also laminated more than the law allows and brought it all home to cut out. 🙂  Here are some of the new things we will (and have been) using in our Math and Literacy Work Stations.  I’m putting the link to where I got them (if there is one) underneath the picture.

 

Literacy Activities

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We practiced subtraction last week using this song/poem and the kids loved it so much that they asked me to write it down and put it in Pocket Chart Work Station so they could “play” with it more.

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Our chicken eggs arrive next week and I always like to add Humpty Dumpty to the egg mix when we learn about them.  This rhyme will go in our Pocket Chart Station as well.

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We used 5 Green and Speckled Frogs two weeks ago to introduce subtraction.  The kids loved it…so it’s going into Pocket Chart Station as well…along with these guys:

photoThe kids can retell the poem while acting it out.  I’m going to add some velcro to the back of the frogs and the top of the log when I get them back to school. You can get the poem and the frogs in my Ponds and Plants pack. 🙂photo

This activity is also from my Ponds and Plants pack.  This activity can be used in two ways.  You can either show the children the words and have them practice reading them, or you can have the children sort them by middle vowel sound, put them under the correct letter, and then write the words on the included recording sheet.

Math Activities

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I just made this this week and you can get them here. The children match up the sum with the math sentence and then write their work on the included recording sheet (it’s at school. 🙂  ).

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How many more to get to 10?  This activity helps children learn to see quantities quickly on a ten frame and to visually help see how many more they need to get to ten.  After adding the green flowers, children record their work on the recording sheet.  The recording sheet asks the child to record both the ten frame work and the math sentence that shows their work (ex: 3+7=10).

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These awesome cards are part of a pack I purchased from my blogging friend Kathleen Pedersen from Growing Kinders! You MUST own this pack!  In addition to these “I have, Who has” teen number cards, Kathleen has booklets for all the teen numbers (11-20) designed to help your kiddos master them!  I printed off the entire pack and copied most of the activities…I’ll share those when they are in use. 🙂

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Next up are these awesome cards by another blogging friend Greg from Kindergarten Smorgasboard! These are from Greg’s Snapping Numbers, Composing and Decomposing Numbers.  These cards represent just two of the activities in this huge pack!  I’ll be hitting up my favorite LEGO store later this weekend to score some of these bricks off the pick-a-brick wall (I love that wall!)

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I’m a LEGO nerd at heart and it helps my obsession that my 8 year old is too! 🙂

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This is one of our new Promethean Board activities for Math.  It includes both addition and subtraction activities and the kids love them!  I got this at Lakeshore down the street from my school, but I can’t remember right now what the name is…

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Found it!  It’s called Beginning Operations.  Here is a shot from Lakeshore’s website.

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This pond roll and cover sheet has funny story behind it.  I set out to make something that resembled a lily pad and got that finished.  Because I was so tired, I started adding cattails and grass around the edges to finish up my pond.  Then I colored it green…still thinking that it was a lily pad, but also thinking it was a pond.  So now it’s either a really big lily pad, or a pond pad, a mix of a pond and a lily pad! 🙂  The children roll the two dice and cover the sum with a cube. 🙂

photoThis activity is also from Lakeshore (if anyone from Lakeshore is reading this, I LOVE your store and would LOVE to be a spokesperson for you or guinea pig some of your new products! 🙂  )

The children use two different colors of linking cubes (included) and then write all those combinations down on the opposite side of the card.

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Here is our Frog Dice Toss activity.  The children roll the two pocket dice and then write the two numbers down along with the sum.

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This is Subtraction Bowling…the latest craze to hit our Kindergarten classroom!!  The children set up the 10 pins and then roll the sphere at them.  They count the number of pins (cups) that fall down and record that on their recording sheet.  I found this activity through a pin on Pinterest, from a site called What the Teacher Wants.  Click the words above to go there. 🙂photo

I thought they would throw the sphere everywhere, but with lots of careful modeling, they did an awesome job! 🙂  They were so engaged too! 🙂

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These are our Domino Mats I got in my Math Swap last summer.  I pinned the idea on Pinterest from Kindergarten, Kindergarten. photo

We’ve been using the mats for about a month now, to get us warmed up to the idea of addition with the amounts on the dominoes.  I decided to step it up a level by asking the kiddos to record their work on this recording sheet.  It’s not available yet, but I’m working (slowly) on a pack of domino ideas and this will be in it> 🙂

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This is Dunk it Dominoes again.  I’ve shown it before in this post, but I wanted to show you that I also added the same recording sheet here in this station as well.  The kids were getting done earlier than everyone else and they were truly trying to dunk the dominoes from far away, so I added this sheet. 🙂  They can now slow down, take their time, and show me they are working on mastering their addition facts. 🙂

This was a long post! 😉  If you’re still reading, thanks for sticking with me! 🙂

What are your favorite Literacy and Math Activities you can’t live without right now?

Kristen 🙂

Ponds and Plants

I just finished up (finally!) a new 72 page pack about Ponds and Plants.  Lots of math, literacy, and science notebook activities are included along with recording sheets for each activity.  Click the picture below to check it out! 🙂Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.18.20 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.19.48 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.18.56 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.21.01 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.20.24 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.20.05 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.18.43 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.19.08 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.19.35 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.19.22 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.20.37 PM Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 8.20.50 PM

 

Kristen 🙂

Frog Freebies

I’m SLOWLY working on getting my Pond/Frog unit done and ready to go…most of it is on the to-do list for Spring Break (along with the April Problem Solving Pack), but I thought I would give you a preview of some of the things that will be included. 🙂

Here is a simple addition game that you can download that’s all froggy themed. 🙂  Print out one or two copies of the frog squares and insert them into your pocket dice:

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If you print two copies, your children can add up to 12, but up to 6 if you just print one copy.  I’ve also included a recording sheet for you. 🙂

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Click here to download the froggy dice. 🙂

Let me know what you think. 🙂

Kristen 🙂

Tadpoles

The tadpoles have arrived!  I set up my tank a few days ago to let the water acclimate and they arrived today!  The kids were so excited!  I’ll post some pictures of our visitors soon. 🙂

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Kristen 🙂

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